Our comrades’ fight against a layoffs plan at Quantic Dream is still going on, and its developments are not over yet. As the end of negociations is near, our union section raises the alarm about the many irregularities in the processus.
Abuse against worker representatives
As we said in our last article, the studio’s executives seem to have a creative reading of the law: they imposed illegal deadlines, forced to keep terms that will not hold up under the labour administration’s examination… nothing to inspire confidence. Even more, they wasted half of the negociation time (6 weeks over a total of 3 months) to discuss the terms of negotiation. For those not familiar with “social dialogue”, these terms are the basis of every negotiation : they define the means, the calendar and the methods of negotiation. It guarantees that negotiations take place correctly, and is obviously crucial when 100 jobs are threatened.
It is sadly not all. Quantic Dream’s executives do not seem to understand that “social dialogue” includes “dialogue”. They refused to provide necessary documents by claiming that negotiators would “corrupt” them – whatever that means, they claimed our comrades were resorting to “fascist methods” (as we only asked for the law to be respected, the French Republic will like the insult), or kept banging on about how “the press should not be read, as it is just a pack of lies”. Without even going into what this says about the studio executives’ personalities, it is impossible to correctly negotiate layoffs when the company resorts to insults and violence at every step.
We also cannot go over the fact the our delegates formulated many propositions and demands, all along the negotiations, which the executives mostly ignored for the 4 meetings. During one of the last meetings, the company did not say a single word about the propositions that were made more than a week before. Is this the kind of diligence and respect that should be expected from our bosses when they want to lay off 115 workers?
Malicious intent and greed
It is clear that Quantic Dream’s management wants to limit itself to doing the bare minimum. When the company is affected neither by a weak market (which is doing fine, regardless of what bosses say) nor by a lack of worker motivation (their struggle shows how much they want to save their jobs and their work), it is normal to offer decent layoff conditions to help those who will lose their job just because their bosses decided so. At Quantic Dream, this is not the case. At every meeting, the company executives, and especially Guillaume de Fondaumière, simply didn’t listen. They showed that they only want to go as low as possible, forgetting that they are legally bound to conduct loyal negotiations, not turn them into a farce.
This third-rate money-grubbing translate into actions that are beyong understanding. For instance, the company is complaining about the training costs for laid-off workers, seemingly forgetting that it is a legal obligation. It is never enjoyable to pay one’s debts, so we would like Quantic Dream to share with us its magic trick to be exempted from it.
It is worth noting that Quantic Dream is a subsidiary of NetEase, a group which is doing really fine, and as such is able to offer more than decent layoff packages to the victims of its management. But their constant quest for more stinginess leads to an absurd situation, in which the executives’ offer would be less than what our comrades won at Don’t Nod, a company with way less financial support. It is disgusting to end up in this situation. If Quantic Dream wants to destroy jobs, it must pay.
What about the workers ?
Finally, we would like to talk about how the company is mistreating its employees. They suffer from the uncertainty created by this dubious plan, which will surely go into extra time. The psychosocial risks linger on even more as our comrades have no means to communicate clearly with workers, after executives cut off their legally-acquired rights to do so. Out of sight, out of mind?
We must also call out the gruesome fate set aside for the teams which worked on Spellcasters Chronicles. After their work was brutally unplugged earlier this year, the company sidelined them and stopped giving them work, for two months now. We must remind everyone that a work contract binds a worker, who rents its working force to an employer, who is under the obligation of giving them work. Before terminating contracts, Quantic Dream should first fulfil their most basic obligations.
To finish up with how workers’ fears are taken into consideration: while executives are trying to prevent worker representatives from communicating with workers about the ongoing negotiations, they do not hesitate to spread lies among the company. Over the past months, they never admitted to any of their failures, even the most obvious ones. On the contrary, David “Cage” de Gruttola congratulated himself about how lucky the soon-to-be laid off workers were to work on the game, as if working around him was a great privilege. Is this how one respects those who create the value exploited by the company?
Quantic Dream, criminal antics
We should make a slight digression: the ongoing procedure stops at the border, but we shall not forget our colleagues in Montreal, who are affected by around twenty layoffs as well. The (relative, as outlined in this article) protection offered by French law is not extended to them, although their situation is very similar to ours. We express our support and solidarity toward them. They deserve the same respect as workers in France.
This negotiation risks being just an act from executives who decided to do whatever they want, and only performed the “social dialogue” rather than actually listening to workers’ propositions. Our union section will fight until the end to ensure that Quantic Dream workers are respected and that, if the lose their jobs, it comes with decent compensation. This has been our message to the company from the first day of negotiations, and we stick to it.
We speak to every person who hindered these negotiations (they know who they are): if you do not respect the law when asked, you will suffer the consequences. We will defend our comrades and worker’s right to have dignified lives through their labour, whatever it will cost us.
Finally, to show off our determination and unity, we call for an open-ended strike at Quantic Dream starting on Wednesday, August 5th. We condemn the shameful attitude of the company during these negotiations. We demand an extension to the negotiations and, at the very least, that the propositions from worker representatives be included in the layoffs plan.